Advances in semiconductor fabrication and manufacturing techniques have led to reduction in operating voltage levels. One reason for using lower operating voltage levels is to reduce the power consumption in semiconductor chips. In some cases where a chip is interfaced with a bus operator according to a standard based on higher voltage levels, typically only the main bulk (core) of the chip is operated at a lower voltage level and its I/O interface is operated at higher voltage levels. In order to implement such a scheme, the chip translates high-voltage I/O signals to low-voltage core signals and low-voltage core signals to high-voltage I/O signals.